I have a new favorite movie.

Well let’s be honest. If you know me, you know I use the word “favorite” pretty loosely, and I have about 37 favorite movies, but this movie has certainly made it close to the top of the list. And the movie is…. Drop Dead Gorgeous! Loved it. Why?? Well, it had four of my favorite things: Liza, Jesus, quotes from other random movies, and former SNL cast members.

The Liza references were so great and so unexpected! The best line comes when Brittany Murphy decides to drop of out the pageant and says “Let’s be honest. A family only needs one Liza.” This is so true. I am my family’s Liza.

The random movie quote is “Soylent Green is people.” My Dad loves the movie Soylent Green. Whenever you are eating something and you’re not sure what’s in it, just say, “Soylent Green is people.” :)

The former SNL cast member is Nora Dunn who plays one of the state pageant officials in the movie. She starred in my very favorite series of SNL skits as Liz Sweeney of the Sweeney Sisters. I love the Sweeney Sisters. I wanted to be a Sweeney Sister. I dreamed that Lorne Michaels would call me and ask me to fill in or play the long lost sister. Well, it turns out there was a long lost sister, Audrey, who showed up in one skit and was played by the one and only Mary Tyler Moore. I have that entire Sweeney Sisters’ show memorized and am willing to perform it for anyone who asks.

Jesus is all over this movie, because the people of Mount Rose are good Christian people. When asked, "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" Becky Ann Leeman replies, “I'd have good strong roots in a town like Mount Rose, a solid Christian trunk, and long, leafy branches to provide shade for handicapped kids on a hot day.” Ok - that's pretty funny, but you just can't beat her performance during the talent portion of the pageant.



And there you have it. I love this movie!!

Lost in a Dream

Last weekend me and the mom and the bro went to Jamestown for the 400th anniversary celebration. It was a fun trip. We saw James Earl Jones, Ricky Scaggs, Bruce Hornsby, Chaka Khan, and Governor Kaine (although I’m more a fan of his wife Anne - partly because of her name and partly because she has a great dad who I have been singing about since I could sing). Anyway, the day at Jamestown was great! We lucked out and got VIP passes to the Hornsby concert which totally rocked.

But the greatest moment came later on that night. We’re cruising back to the 757 in the Hoopty Van (that’s the name I bestowed on my mom’s minivan when I was in high school. She has a new van now, but the name has carried forward). So we’re rolling along and it’s pretty quiet in the van when all of the sudden I hear from the back seat… "Straight up now tell me do you really wanna love me forever, oh oh ohhh. or am I caught in a hit and run?"

I just about died. It was my 26 year old brother bustin' out the Paul Abdul. For no reason. Except that he's awesome.

We sang Paula all the way home.

Accounting conferences are boring.

This was the big conclusion of the day. It was halfway through a discussion on FAS 157 that I decided it was time to get out of the financial world and open Sweet Anne's or the PFJ Studio. That would be Pilates for Jesus. I'll teach pilates and we'll play worship music in the background. Wouldn't that be a great combination?

Also, since I almost fell out of my chair due to extreme boredom and exhaustion during the conference yesterday afternoon, I decided I would take some preventative measures and drink some caffeine today to keep me awake. So for the first time in my life I drank a diet coke. And I almost drank the whole thing!! Boomama and Sarah would be proud, I'm sure. I usually stick to water since caffeine after 3pm tends to keep me up til all hours of the night. I love the taste of coke, but since I'm trying to lose a pound or seven I decided to go for the diet. And it tasted pretty good! Now we just have to wait and see if I can sleep tonight (I stopped drinking it around 1:45 so hopefully I'll be ok).

Random Stats about my life.

Yes, I’m a freak and I like to keep all kinds of random data on my life (actually it’s mostly all financial data, but by tracking how much I spend in different areas, I can also track the number of times I frequent certain places). So here goes:

Grocery Stores:

Last year I purchased groceries 121 times, which means I visited the grocery store (on average) once every 2.3 days. This makes me very happy because the grocery store is number 3 on my list of favorite buildings to walk into (church is 1, the library 2, mall 4, fdic 5). Giant came in first place with 48 visits and Safeway was a close second with 44. Harris Teeter took the bronze with 23.

Gas Stations:

Exxon came in first with 35 visits. Shell and Sheetz came in second and third with 13 and 10 visits respectively. If anyone is curious, I spent $1130.38 on gas last year. To be honest, this really doesn’t seem all that high considering how expensive gas was (and now is again) and that I went on an almost 6,000 mile road trip.

Shopping:

I made purchases at the AT and ATL a total of 17 times. I won’t tell you how much I spent :)

I only went to Wal-Mart twice which kind of makes me sad. I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a fan.

I made 11 purchases at Amazon.com.

Dining Out:

I ate out at least 139 times. This is difficult to track because sometimes I’m forced to use cash when eating out with a large group. My restaurant of choice for 2006 was Subway. I went there 29 times. So far this year I have only eaten there once. I’m over the sweet onion chicken teriyaki and have moved on to Quizno’s roasted chicken honey mustard flat bread salad. Yum.

Travel:

I purchased three plane tickets in 2006 (Jamaica, Seattle/Alaska, and Italy)
I purchased four train tickets (Seattle to Vancouver, and tickets between Rome/Assisi/Florence)
I stayed in 15 different hotels.

Entertainment:

I purchased music from iTunes 27 times.

I saw 14 movies in the theater last year. I think I can name them all. They are: Rocky Balboa, the Queen, the Departed (ahhh, why did I sit through that movie???), Thank You for Smoking, Little Miss Sunshine, Talladega Nights, Stranger than Fiction (you know I love me some Will Ferrell), A Prairie Home Companion, A Good Woman, Curious George, Failure to Launch, The Benchwarmers, Akeelah and the Bee, and The Devil Wears Prada. I did not see Snakes on a Plane.

So there you have it. I'm a freak. But as Boy George says "if you knew what I knew, you'd be a freak too."

100 Hours*

That's how long it has been since I last applied chapstick to my lips. And for those of you who know me, you know that this is a miracle that has only occurred by the grace of God. I am a major chapstick addict. I apply it approximately 3 times an hour, and I've been known to hyperventilate when I don't have any within arms length.

According to my friend Janelle, it will take 3 weeks for my lips to heal themselves. Right now they are dry and red and cracked and downright funky, but I'm still alive and that's what matters. The first two days were pretty painful, but since yesterday, I haven't been thinking about it much. I keep listening to the Lincoln Brewster song "Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord, wait upon the Lord, we will wait upon the Lord." Call me crazy, but just singing that chorus in my head instead of thinking about chapstick has really helped. Yay God!

I wonder if the Salvation Army takes unused tubes of chapstick? If I really break free of this addiction, I've got about 10 unopened tubes that will need a new home.

*I had too many titles to choose from for this post. I almost called it "Revive our Lips"; a play on Nancy Leigh DeMoss' Revive our Hearts ministry but didn't know if anyone would get it :)

Funchester

This weekend me and some friends headed to Winchester for the Apple Blossom festival. Wayne Newton was the grand marshal and Cissie Graham (Billy's grandaughter) was the queen, but the star of the show was my dad and his tractor (IMO). Here are some pictures.

And here's a little video of dad in the parade. Ignore the last few seconds when some women runs into me :)

Jesus called again.

Or someone who wants me to love Him.



Yes, this is the call log on my phone at work. You will imagine my surprise when I came back from lunch and saw "Love Christ" at the top of my phone. I told my secretary about it and she was just beside herself with how amazing it was. It was a great afternoon of remembering how awesome Christ is and of showing everyone else in the office that Jesus really does exist because he just called me. So there, you non-believing co-worker peeps (no I didn’t really say that).

At first I saw it as a reminder that Jesus loves me, like he had just left me a message and signed it "Love, Christ," but it was also a reminder for me to love Christ above all the other crap I tend to focus my heart and mind on. God is always working to turn my heart back to Him - even through random phone calls.

Well, a couple of days ago the secretary came running down the hall saying "Guess who called?, guess who called?" I'd forgotten about the whole "Love Christ" thing until she yelled out "Jesus!!" Man was she excited that he'd finally called her! I've been praying that God would do some work in my office and it looks like this is a start! So I'd like to thank Him for putting Mr. Love in this job, and I would like to thank this guy's mother for naming him Christopher Love, and finally I'd like to thank my place of employment for truncating names in the call log after 10 characters.